Change of Address
by WyseQuack
Summary: Someone has had all they can take of a certain strange town. (BtVS & mystery crossover)


Change of Address   
  
Title: Change of Address  
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer/ mystery crossover fanfic

Author: WyseQuack  
E-mail: WyseQuack@shaw.ca

Date Written: Dec 2003

You wanna know what the cross is? Too bad.   
You want a hint? All I'll say is it's a rarely done crossover. I've never myself seen BtVS crossed with this show. But there's probably at least one somewhere, on some obscure corner of the internet. 

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to the characters or settings from Buffy the Vampire Slayer - or the other television series involved in the cross (which I'm not going to give away in the disclaimer). I'm not making any profit off this. I'm just having some fun with other people's toys. 

Feedback: Please, if you leave a review at fanfiction.net or Twisting the Hellmouth, do NOT identify the crossover. It's supposed to be a mystery, so please don't spoil it for those people who check reviews prior to reading the stories.  
That being said, if you want to tell me what you liked about the story - or even what you didn't - please do. 

Timeframe: BtVS: This could be taking place any time before, say, the last third of S7. As for the mystery cross - it's pretty much irrelevant. This could be taking place any time at all. 

Spoilers: None. If you know enough to recognize the crossover from the hints I drop, I don't see how I can be spoiling anything. And since I never actually name the crossover, if you can't identify it, I can't have spoiled it for you now, can I? 

Rating: PG. Actually, I'd say it's closer to G, but I'll give it the slightly higher rating just to be safe. 

Paring: None. 

Summary: Someone has had all they can take of a certain strange town. (Brief, but too long to be called a drabble.) 

  
Change of Address 

  
There's something wrong with this town. 

I don't understand why more people don't seem to notice it. 

If they did, somebody would be testing the air, the water, the soil, . . . everything. Trying to find out why so many homicidal impulses around here end up being acted upon. 

Most of the deaths make the news, but, oddly, the media glosses over their frequency. 

Okay, on the surface the place looks like prototypical small town Americana. But if this is what's typical, America's in more trouble than I thought. 

An appalling number of people suffer deaths here that, shall we say, aren't from natural causes. When people trot out the phrase "Murdertown, U. S. A." they're usually talking about some place like Detroit or Washington, D.C. Not about here. But all that means is somebody's not paying enough attention. 

Per capita, this place has **got** to have both of those beat. I haven't worked the numbers, but why would I want to? I know I've been stupid - I don't need the details of exactly _how_ stupid. 

I'd always planned to retire to the coast - somewhere I could keep a boat which I could use to go deep-sea fishing on a regular basis. Plus, I've always liked the sight of the sun, low on the horizon, shining off the water. So when the time came, and I heard about some property available here for a song, I snapped it up. 

I did ask _some_ questions - I'm a fool, but not a total damned fool! - but not the right ones, I guess. The previous owner was selling because his business had failed. He was selling at a bargain because he needed to raise liquid capital quickly. 

It made sense to me. I didn't read any significance into the fact it was an insurance business. Or ask exactly _why_ it had gone under. 

But, in hindsight, I'd lay good odds the problem was it wound up on the hook for an excessive number of double and even triple-indemnity payouts. 

Making money in the insurance business here must take a really special knack. 

Maybe I should have done a little more digging, but come on - the next time you move to a different town, ask the realtor or the chamber of commerce "Is the death rate here excessive?" and see how far it gets you. 

Actually, that might be a good test. If the person doesn't obviously start wondering about your sanity, look elsewhere - fast! Except for the part about getting a reputation as a lunatic in any town where you might actually like to stay, it should work pretty well. 

I should have paid more attention to the stories about that broad that always comes along at the right time and manages to foil the bad guys' plots. 

I'd heard some of them, but I though that's all they were - stories. 

I know better now. The police would be a joke without her. 

Actually, they're a joke _with_ her. It's just that her presence masks their incompetence. So people can - and do - pretend not to notice how ineffective law enforcement actually is around here. 

That might work for some people, particularly the ones with roots who've lived here a long time. But as for me - I'm getting out while I still can. I've had my fill of living on the bullseye. People keep on dropping dead here, and I don't want to become one of them. Retired is not the same thing as 'waiting to die'. I've got quite a few good years left in me, and I intend to make use of them. 

So I've sold the house here, and the boat. It was a good boat, but it's simpler to replace it than get it to the other side of the continent. 

Yes, I bought a house out there. Sunrise, sunset, they're both pretty. It was a good deal. Maybe too good. Should I have been more suspicious? 

Come on. Lightning can't strike me twice like that, can it? 

Of course not. 

So tomorrow I'm saying my good-byes to Cabot Cove and Maine, and then I'm headed out to beautiful, placid Sunnydale, California. 

I'm feeling better already. 

  
The End

  
  
  
  
  
  
Addendum - Author's Note: 

I honestly thought everybody - well, almost everybody - would be able to deduce the crossover once they'd read the entire story. The show in question had a lot of staying power, so I thought most people would at least know _of_ it, and a little bit about it. 

From the responses I've gotten that doesn't seem to be the case. A lot of people know the show I'm referring to, but a lot of others are baffled. 

So, the show in question is 

Spoiler Space   
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Murder, She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher  
set mostly in Cabot Cove, Maine 

I guess I'm showing my age, or something. I really thought it was a very recognizable show, but I guess it pre-dates a lot of the readership here. 

Also, where I could, I've deleted some reviews that, in my opinion, gave away too much about the ending. If you're wondering why your review disappeared, that's probably why. I appreciate the feedback, but I want to minimize the chance of the story being spoiled for other readers. 

Thanks for understanding, and happy reading. 

-WyseQuack 


End file.
